Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Health and Human Services and Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 90 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to establish the Hawaii Autism Center for Excellence within the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM).

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Health, Department of Education, John A. Burns School of Medicine at UHM, Autism Society of Hawaii, Hawaii Psychiatric Medical Association, and four private citizens.

Autism causes severe impairments in language and communication, and generally manifests itself in young children in the first two years of life, causing devastation that lasts a lifetime due to the emotional and financial distress that families experience. The prevalence of autism is more common than popularly thought. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in five hundred individuals in the State are affected by autism.

There has been little biomedical research into autism, in spite of the fact that scientists consider autism to be one of the most congenital of all developmental disorders and most likely to yield the latest scientific advancements in genetics and neurology. Several other states have established autism research centers. This measure establishes a world-class autism research center in Hawaii.

Your Committee on Ways and Means is urged to retain the University of Hawaii as the expending agency but to delete any specific reference to establishing the Hawaii Autism Center of Excellence at the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine. This will allow the university flexibility in deciding how the funds will be utilized in coordination with the School Of Medicine and community practitioners.

Your Committees made technical, nonsubstantive amendments to comport with proper drafting style.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Human Services and Education that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 90, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 90, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.